Sometimes you can’t avoid giving presentations that are heavy on data. Examples of this would be presentations for demographics, market researches and such. So how do you solve this? How do you make your presentations interesting even if it’s full of data and numbers?

Below are 3 solutions:

1. Use Notes pages – use the Notes pane and put some of the data there. You can print this out later to be distributed among your audience.

2. Send to Word – Send your presentation to Microsoft Word.

3. Use letter-sized slides – This is best used when you won’t be projecting slides at all.

For heavy-duty meetings and presentations that require a lot of data to help the participants come up with a decision (e.g. market research meeting), they usually require handouts to be given out so participants of the meeting can further refer to the important additional data pertaining to the object of their meeting. Since most presentations are done using PowerPoint, and most handouts are printed from Word, here’s what you can do…

Below are the steps you can follow to create these much needed handouts from PowerPoint to Word: export your slides to Word.

Create the slides. You can have text in the Notes pane, but that isn’t necessary.

Note that you have a choice to choose Paste or Paste Link. If you choose Paste, Microsoft embeds the entire presentation and the file can become quite large. If you have a lot of slides, choose Paste Link and be sure to keep the PowerPoint and Microsoft files in the same folder — you’ll also need both files if you need to move it to another computer.

Click OK. Word opens. Wait until it brings in all of the slides — and notes, if any

The idea of flipping a meeting came from Ellen Finkelstein when she mentioned it during the Presentation Summit after hearing the SVP of Strategic Services at Duarte, Patti Sanchez, talk about slidedocs, which are slides that are used as short documents which can be used for reading before an actual meeting takes place.

Having a flipped meeting is all about distributing materials before a meeting takes place. These materials could be slide documents, notes, results of a research, etc. that attendees of a meeting will have to read and go over, analyze and understand so that during the meeting itself, they will just have to discuss it more, answer questions that may arise and make decisions from there.

By doing this, meeting time is reduced, the attendees can focus on the more important stuff and more relevant decisions can be made.

Any form of content marketing like public speaking or presentations is all about making a good story you can sell to people. According to Kevin Spacey (yep, the famous Hollywood actor), there are 3 basic elements that can make your stories great. Here they are:

1. Conflict – The purpose of this is to create tension that will keep people engaged and wanting more.

2. Authenticity – There should be truth in your story. It should be authentic and resonates well with the brand you are selling.

3. The audience – Spacey believes that the audiences now are different from before. They want control. They want variety. And therefore, we should give them what they want but without sacrificing your authenticity.

As a final note, Spacey also said that when you know what story you want to tell, everything else will follow.